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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

I never really thought about sunset much, about what conditions need to be present to achieve a sunset of startling beauty. From time to time, I look out the window and admire a particularly lovely one, and may even take photos, but there are always rooftops and power lines in the way. So a holiday seemed like a good opportunity to take sunset photographs, from the vantage point of a harbour cruise, or a beach.

We never really saw a good one, though. There always seemed to be a clear sky except for clouds low on the horizon, and I realised that's the opposite of what is needed. The sun needs to shine up from below, onto the underside of layers of clouds, to produce those spectacular sunset colours. I learnt instead to appreciate the subtleties of the gentle tints that we had to be content with. Here are three "not really a proper sunset" photos, taken as the sun was going down.

About Me

She tried hard to be like the others/she struggled to catch a ball/she never quite managed a cartwheel/after much practice she stood on her head./When she grew up she turned to science/she thought she would turn the world upside down/after a while she realised that the world had stayed in its proper place all along/and she was still standing on her head.